World leaders assemble in Germany for their annual G7 summit tasked with drafting a provisional statement on the current (unspecified) crisis. Isolated from the media in a remote gazebo, they slowly set to work, distracted only by the personal anguish of Canada’s PM (Roy Dupuis), a handsome man beset with personal and political scandals. Yet as the evening draws in they realize there is something far greater amiss. Mysterious dark figures (Protestors? Terrorists? Goblins?) loom in the shadows. Panicked, the leaders of the free world stumble into the woods looking for safety.
This fantastic political satire scores big points for cheek, beginning with an opening caption thanking the G7 for their assistance. The casting is a hoot: Cate Blanchett as a horny German Chancellor… Denis Ménochet as the pretentious French President… Charles Dance as a befuddled, napping American Commander in Chief, who muses about setting up his own assassination. But this is a Canadian movie (the first feature in seven years from the Guy Maddin/Johnson brothers combo), so it’s fitting that our own Prime Minister should get the last word and the biggest catcalls.
Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet
Canada/Germany
2024
In English, French, Swedish and German with English subtitles
At Vancouver Playhouse
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Ari Aster, Cate Blanchett, Phyllis Laing, Jörg Schulze, Joe Neurauter, Simon Ofenloch, Devan Towers, Jennifer Beasley, Tyler Campellone, Lina Flint, Mary Aloe, Gillian Hormel, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Adrian Love, Michael O’Leary, Stefan Kapelari, Moritz Peters, Blair Ward, Anders Erdén, Lauren Case, Eric Harbert, Del Mondor, Shannon Ward, Michael Werry, George Heuser, Jacob Phillips, Stephen Griffiths, Christopher Payne, Sean Krajewski, Ronnie Exley, Lawrence Minicone, Jeremy Ross, Stephen Lamm, Dave Bishop, George Hamilton, James Pugh, Janina Vilsmaier, Judit Stalter, Gábor Sipos, Gábor Rajna, Fred Benenson, Morwin Schmookler, George Rush
Producer
Liz Jarvis, Philipp Kreuzer, Lars Knudsen
Screenwriter
Evan Johnson
Cinematography
Stefan Ciupek
Editor
John Gurdebeke, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson
Original Music
Kristian Eidnes Andersen
Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin has directed thirteen feature-length movies in a career spanning over thirty years. For the past decade, he has worked exclusively in directorial partnership with Evan and Galen Johnson, creating The Forbidden Room (2015), The Green Fog (2017), and the internet interactive Seances (2016). During his solo helming years, Maddin mounted around the world over seventy performances of his films, Cowards Bend The Knee (2002), Brand Upon The Brain (2006), and My Winnipeg (2007) in productions featuring live elements – orchestra, sound effects, song and narration. His screenplay and film-story collaborators include Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro and poet John Ashbery. In America, his movies Archangel (1990) & The Heart Of The World (2000) won National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Experimental Film.
Filmography: The Saddest Music in the World (2003); Brand Upon the Brain! (2006); My Winnipeg (2007); The Forbidden Room (2015)
Evan Johnson
Evan Johnson is a writer and filmmaker living in Winnipeg. He studied film and philosophy at the University of Manitoba and worked at Winnipeg’s Rug Doctor chemical bottling plant before being discovered there by Guy Maddin. He co-directed his first feature, The Forbidden Room (2015), with Maddin, and since then has been writing/directing with Maddin and his brother Galen Johnson.
Filmography: The Forbidden Room (2015); The Rabbit Hunters (2020)
Galen Johnson
Galen Johnson is a filmmaker and designer based in Winnipeg, Canada. In 2012, he worked as Production Designer, Title Designer, and Composer on The Forbidden Room, for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for production design/art direction. He has since gone on to co-direct Bring Me The Head Of Tim Horton (2015), the experimental short film website Seances (2016), The Green Fog (2017), Accidence (2017), and Stump The Guesser (2020) all with Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson.
Filmography: Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton (2015); The Green Fog (2017); The Rabbit Hunters (2020)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Baltimorons
An early Xmas present and the rom-com of the year: a dental emergency on Christmas Eve brings together flailing comedian Chris and cynical divorcee Didi for a series of low-key urban misadventures.
Cover-Up
Oscar-winner Laura Poitras and Emmy-winner Mark Obenhaus turn their lens on legendary journalist Seymour Hersh in a riveting film that unpacks how one reporter exposed the truths behind My Lai and Abu Ghraib — and what it takes to hold power to account.
Image: © The New York Times
The Librarians
Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.
You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine
A remarkable line up of artists come together to share their love for the great American singer-songwriter John Prine, including Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Kurt Vile and Kasey Musgraves.